Abducted SLT Manpower employee found

Maharagama Police have launched an extensive investigation into the abduction of the Vice-President of Telecom Manpower Association, Sujeewa Mangala, three days ago, by as yet unidentified men who had tied up his feet and legs and abducted him in a black van on 28 January.

Mangala told the Maharagama Police that his hands and legs had been tied up and that he was taken in the van on a trip that lasted about three hours and was locked up in an empty room. Mangala's statement adds that he was threatened to relinquish his position as Vice-President of the Telecom Manpower Association and to end the strike on which they had walked out on the day of his abduction.

The next thing he knew was that he was tied hand and foot and gagged at dawn on 1 February, bundled into the van once again, travelled some distance and was then thrown out of the van onto a road that he discovered was in the Ingiriya area.

He had been abducted in a black van that came from the direction of Penwatte in Maharagama while on his way home on his motorcycle after the strike ended for the day on 28 January, he has told Police.

Mangala had gone to the Ingiriya Police yesterday and explained the ordeal and Ingiriya Police had informed the Piliyandala Police about the incident and taken him to the Piliyandala Police for further investigation.

Mangala's wife had lodged a complaint with the Piliyandala Police on 29 regarding his disappearance.

She had stated in her complaint that a few hours before he disappeared, her husband had called and informed her at about 10.00 p.m. from Lotus Road in Fort that he would be home soon.

Police found the motorcycle abandoned in the Piliyandala Police Division. Since Mangala went missing while in the Maharagama Police Division, investigations had been handed over to the Maharagama Police.

A top Police official told Ceylon Today that CCTV camera footage from a place in Pelenwatte in Maharagama at the site at which Mangala was abducted as well as footage from a site at Ingiriya are being studied by Police.

Statements from SujithMangala were recorded by the Maharagama Police for a period of over one hour and yesterday evening and had been produced before the Judicial Medical Officer of the Kalubowila Teaching hospital.

Further investigations into the incident are being carried out under the instructions of Acting Officer-In-Charge of the Maharagama Police, Inspector of Police G. I. D. S. Chandrasiri and under the guidance of Officer-In-Charge of the Crimes Investigation Division of the Maharagama Police Station Sub-Inspector of Police T. J. B. Herath.